WASHINGTON 
Forgettable as it was, you may remember May Day, May Day, May Day.

It’s back.

OK, so it was hot and muggy and just plain summer sticky on this night after the Fourth of July in Our Nation’s Capital, but the Padres who fell 8-5 to the Washington Nationals sure appeared to be right back where they were on the First of May. That happened to be the last date they were seven games under .500, their current mark at 40-47.

Even 10 hits and home runs by Chase Headley and Carlos Quentin, rare as they’ve been this season, were not nearly enough for the Padres to avoid their seventh straight loss on this 10-game road trip and 10th defeat in their last 12 outings. Not with starting pitcher Andrew Cashner lasting just two innings and two hitters into the game, throwing a total of 65 pitches to 15 hitters.

“Physically, he’s fine,” manager Bud Black said of Cashner (5-4). “He was up in the zone. Couldn’t command the fastball. Didn’t get the changeup in good spots. … The (second) inning snowballed on him.”

The Padres made Nats starter Gio Gonzalez (6-3) throw 30 pitches in the first inning, scoring just one run in the process on doubles by Chris Denorfia and Headley, and got nothing from two runners in scoring position in the second. They even scared the heck out of Gonzalez with a Cashner pitch that was headed directly for his heart.

By the time Gonzalez finally left with two outs in the sixth, though, the Padres were down by a half-dozen runs.

Only in two of the first three of his 13 previous starts had Cashner not gone at least six innings, but he was replaced by Tim Stauffer after just two-plus Friday night, trailing 5-2 as he departed with Nats on second and first.

A five-run, 10-batter, four-hit, two-walk second inning by the Nationals, however, pretty much told the Padres that Washington might not be any different from Miami and Boston over the previous six days.

The Nats already had jumped ahead 2-1 when things started getting dicey. With runners on second and first, Gonzalez squared fully around to bunt, but only by getting up his left arm to deflect the ball was he able to keep from taking a changeup flush to the chest.

As Gonzalez took a couple slow steps toward first, Cashner walked in toward him, later explaining that he was assuring Gonzalez that he didn’t mean to hit him. Black came out of the dugout, checking to make sure that it really was a legal hit-by-pitch and not a strike.

“I wanted to make sure he didn’t try to bunt the ball, because he squared it,” said Black. “His back was to me. I saw him square.

“(Plate ump Mike Everitt) asked the first-base umpire (Bruce Dreckman) if he did indeed try to get out of the way and not attempt a bunt, and the first-base ump agreed with the home-plate ump.”

Play resumed, Denard Span doubled, Ian Desmond walked and Bryce Harper made it 5-2 with one of the most towering sacrifice flies you could imagine.

In the third, Headley hit a solo homer, his seventh of the season and first since June 11. Moreover, it was just the fourth multiple-RBI game of the season for the switch-hitter, who led the league with 115 last year.

The effects of the homer lasted almost no time at all as Washington scored the last run charged to Cashner.

“I didn’t think (Black) was coming out to get me,” said Cashner, “but I didn’t realize I’d thrown that many pitches.”

Only when the Padres finally saw Gonzalez walk off the mound after 110 pitches did things take a turn for their better. Pedro Ciriaco and Denorfia were on base when Quentin’s seventh-inning homer off reliever Craig Stammen turned an 8-2 romp into a three-run game.